Offsetting Your Trip

According to research from RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), when you recycle six aluminium cans you are effectively offsetting a 25 kilometre train journey, a 17 kilometre bus ride or 10 kilometre trip in an average size car.

The RMIT research also shows that when they are recycled, aluminium cans are the most sustainable drink container available. They are endlessly recyclable because aluminium doesn't degrade during the recycling process.

Cans are light and easily crushed which makes it really easy to take them home with you if you're out and about and can't find recycling facilities.

How does recycling aluminium cans relate to offsetting my travel?

Aluminium metal is extracted from bauxite through a complex and energy-intensive process. Making aluminium cans from recycled materials uses 95% less energy than producing them from raw materials. For every tonne of aluminium recycled, five tonnes of bauxite are conserved.

Armed with data on how much energy is saved per aluminium can, we can compare this to the energy expenditure of different forms of transport. This is how it is calculated that the energy saved by recycling six aluminium cans is equivalent to the energy required to travel 25 km on a train, 17 km on a bus or 10 km in an average sized car. These figures are a per passenger average.